11th MVP Award Rewarded

I am actually on vacation, but as I sit here under the summer sun, toes in the pool and a cold drink within reach, I have been waiting for that email confirming that I’ve been awarded my 11th Microsoft MVP Award! As last year, I am being awarded in both the Teams and Copilot category. To say I’m humbled would be an understatement. Being part of the global Microsoft MVP community for over a decade now has been an incredible journey, filled with learning, sharing, speaking, and connecting with passionate technologists from every corner of the world. What is the Microsoft MVP Award? The Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award is given to technology experts who share their knowledge and real-world expertise with communities. With fewer than 4,000 MVPs worldwide, it’s an honor to be part of such a vibrant and dedicated group. MVPs contribute through speaking engagements, writing, open-source contributions, and helping others online and offline. You can learn more about the progra...

Copilot Actions, rolling out

Copilot Actions has been available through Copilot Studio for some time, and now, a version of this feature is being rolled out within Microsoft 365. This new integration offers a user-friendly way to automate and delegate common tasks.

The term "Actions" varies depending on the application. In Copilot Studio, it serves as a flexible tool for agents. By combining Copilot prompts and conversations, triggers (such as file modifications or scheduled reminders), and user-defined rules, Copilot Actions can generate artifacts that streamline workflows. A similar type of action is teased in the "lightweight" version of Copilot Studio within the M365 agent builder (marked as "coming soon").

The version discussed here is a new out-of-the-box functionality, designed to ensure that even users with minimal technical expertise can benefit from its powerful asynchronous capabilities.

To utilize Copilot Actions, users must have a Copilot license (priced at $30). The help article "Set up actions in Copilot to automate daily tasks" on Microsoft Support is a valuable resource for this purpose. The feature is already available in our production tenant, indicating that the rollout has begun.

I hope this feature continues to develop. Currently, it seems you can only run predefined tasks with limited adjustments to the queries. However, users can be taught to build their own agents and use triggers in Power Automate to initiate these agents.